you're going to be my bruise
by wyverna
Summary: Four times that Rachel ignores Jesse, and one time she doesn't. Spoilers for the finale. Oneshot. Originally posted on Livejournal under a different penname.


**i.**  
Jesse's waiting for her after school one day, leaning against the door as she leaves. He's the last person that she wants to see, in all honesty; she walked away from him once but she's not sure that she'll have the strength to do it again. Besides, Jesse has no place in her life anymore. Rachel is with Finn now and he's lovely and nice (_safe_, but she doesn't think that) - Finn would never hurt her, that's for sure, and there's nothing lurking behind his smile. Finn holds her hand in the corridors and listens when she tells him that she doesn't like his arm slung around her shoulder; he nods and agrees when she talks about singing and doesn't joke about her being crazy, not even a little bit.

(Finn doesn't duck away from her, laughing, because she doesn't try to hit him in the arm when he insults her. He doesn't instigate singing, not in stores or when they're walking home, and he doesn't slip a hand dangerously far up her thigh.)

Jesse smiles a little bit when he sees her, his mouth curling up at the corner, and she wants Finn to be a barrier between them. He's waiting out by his car, though, ready to give her a ride home and so there's nothing for it but for Rachel to steel herself and keep walking and pretend like she never saw Jesse, like he's not even a blip on her radar. It may well be, Rachel decides afterwards, her finest performance yet.

**ii.**  
Rachel doesn't recognise him, at first. Not because he looks entirely different (he doesn't, not even a little bit) but because she's spent so many years telling herself that it's _not_ him, training herself out of second glances and skipped heartbeats. So when her gaze lands on him, she doesn't allow herself to think _he looks like Jesse_, and instead she carries on taking in the room, the people, secure in the knowledge that some of these people will be her new cast mates. That she'll be working with them, she'll know their names and faces, and they'll all be friends. Rachel is sure that they'll all be friends. (She hasn't got the part yet, but that's never stopped her before.)

**iii.**  
Jesse's behind her as she's leaving rehearsal, and she doesn't even have to glance around to check. It's disconcerting how quickly she fell back into the routine of being aware of him always; just like at glee, she was always conscious of his presence at her side, comforting and solid. Knowing that he was there watching her at Sectionals, feeling his eyes on her, hot and heavy. She thought, when she left McKinley, that she was done with it, done with him. And yet like an addiction, she's gone five years cold turkey and now he's here, and she's slid right back to where she was before, like nothing's changed.

He catches the strap of her bag, says "Rachel!" with a smile in his voice, and she refuses to let herself look around. He skips back to avoid the door hitting him on her way out.

**iv.**  
The bar is lovely and not a dive at all; Rachel's hesitant even to call it a bar, but it's certainly not a coffee shop so there isn't really a better word for it. She feels comfortable there in a way that she never thought she would around strangers - she's not quite a regular but she's been there enough to receive a welcoming smile and a nod to her favourite table, if it's free. More often than not, it is; as a theatre performer, Rachel works very strange hours and although there's always someone in the bar when she is, it's not exactly packed full of people. It's just her time to relax, to be away from her apartment and expectations, to - to not be Rachel Berry, just for a little while.

And she hates admitting that, even to herself, because ninety nine per cent of the time she _loves_ being Rachel Berry. In fact, there's no one she'd rather be - Rachel has achieved everything that she set out to, and her life is perfect. Still, it's nice sometimes, to have a little time out. She reads trashy chick-lit that has nothing to do with theatre or singing at all, and curls up in a corner with glass of water to while away the hours (carefully, of course, there's an alarm set on her phone to remind her of precisely the time that she needs to leave). No one bothers her, so it's a surprise when someone casts a shadow over her; even more of one when she looks up and sees who it is.

"Is this seat taken?" Jesse asks, and Rachel's stomach doesn't swoop at all, and her hands certainly don't shake, not even a little bit. Instead, she returns her attention to her book, not even allowing herself the pleasure of a glare that will let him know exactly what she thinks of him.

His shadow remains for a few seconds (she counts the beats; one, two, three) and next time she looks up, he's gone. Rachel isn't sure what she's feeling, but it isn't disappointment.

**v.**  
"Rachel, please." He sighs, pushes his hair away from his face with one hand and the gesture is so familiar to her, it hurts. "I said I was sorry-"

"No," she says, and it surprises both of them. "You didn't."

"I didn't?" Jesse looks taken aback in a way she's never seen before, and he shrugs one shoulder. "I'm sorry, Rachel. But I'm also not the same person that I was back then, and I feel like you've got to understand this. You're a professional; you know that we're not giving the best performance that we could with this tension bleeding through-"

"I'm not tense," she snaps automatically, and it's such an obvious lie that she flushes as the words leave her mouth. Jesse can tell as well, pointing it out with a simple raise of his eyebrow and she hates him so much right now that she can feel it burning in her stomach. "I'm not, Jesse. You can believe what you want but we have a more than adequate working relationship."

"We both know that's not true," he says easily, and she wants to shout at him, to hit him, to do anything to make him lose his composure (which he never has, not once, not even when she walked out during Bohemian Rhapsody and he must have seen her, he _must_). "Rachel, this is the first time you've spoken to me in at least five years."

"_Not_ undeservedly," Rachel points out, conceding, "but, you may have a point. I suppose."

"I do," he says softly. "Do you want to go out for lunch? We can talk. If you think about it, it's overdue." He grins suddenly, wickedly, and it tugs at her heart more than a little. "You can tell me all about your highschool romance with Finn Hudson."

Jesse ducks away laughing when she tries to hit him in the arm, and later he catches her hand with his own and doesn't let go. It's not an apology, not really. But it's a start._  
_


End file.
